Guardian
by StarboundMonarchy
Summary: A Guardian is a ghost that is assigned the task of caring for a being who is destined to have a large impact on the time stream. Danny never knew they existed, let alone that he would be one... especially for this kid.
1. Prologue

**Hello, StarboundMonarchy here! We've had this particular AU in the works for a while, and it's one of our overall favorites. This is just the prologue, but we promise it gets pretty interesting later... as in, pretty much immediately.**

 **Please enjoy the story!**

 **WARNING: Some violence. Insanity. The usual.**

* * *

Danny was pretty sure things couldn't get much better than this.

For the first time since before the Accident, he felt truly accepted by his friends, his family, and society as a whole. After saving the world from the Disasteroid with a plan to make Earth intangible instead of altering the anti-ghost substance, the vast majority of people gave him public approval. In fact, many cities around the world had apparently made monuments to him, as embarrassing as it was. Amity Park was the only one that had made a huge statue, as far as he knew, but it probably wouldn't be rare to see some sort of plaque in others.

More importantly, in Danny's opinion, his family had accepted him for who and what he was. Of course, even Danny was still uncomfortable talking about it - how do you explain to your parents that you don't know if you're technically alive? - and they had grounded him for two weeks before he was given the opportunity to explain his earlier "villainy," but overall he was relieved to have the support.

And there was another benefit to the entire debacle.

"I'm really glad you got your powers back, Danny. I would've hated to lose your friendship… and our relationship."

Danny smiled and nodded at Sam. A tiny inkling in the back of his mind reminded him that Sam was the only one who said that he would lose anyone's friendship because he wanted to be a normal human, but he quickly brushed the thought away. Sam loved him, and he had never loved a girl more than he did her.

"I don't know what I was thinking, now that it's over," Danny responded, holding his girlfriend close, "I mean, I kind of do? I thought that being normal would get rid of all of the misery that the last year or so has brought…"

Sam raised an eyebrow in warning.

"...But of course, I'm much happier this way! You were right, my powers make me special." the halfa amended hurriedly, not having intended to make her mad.

Danny's girlfriend kissed his cheek lightly, "Of course they do! You wouldn't be the Danny I love so very much without them, you know."

"Oh, I'm sure he isn't, Samantha."

At the sound of the unfortunately familiar voice, Danny and Sam both froze. Then both turned to see the very man no one expected to meet again.

Danny stood from the park bench, baring his teeth in a snarl as his eyes flashed green, "What are you doing back on Earth, Vlad!?"

"That's simple, my dear boy," The older halfa said with a smug grin, a strange glint in his eyes, "I've come for what is rightfully mine. I've returned to take your mother as my queen so we can rule the universe!"

"You're kidding, right?" Danny transformed mid-sentence, rolling his eyes, "You almost destroyed the world, and tried to blackmail everyone into paying you and making you their leader. I mean, c'mon, don't you know that third world countries exist? Besides, people are more likely to follow a person who treats them well… Look around! I did something out of the kindness of my heart, and now I have everything I could have asked for and more."

"That matters not, little badger. You WILL be mine!" Plasmius' grin stretched into something a bit more unsettling, sending a chill up Danny's spine. Was Vlad okay..?

Shaking his head, Danny leapt into the air and charged up a pair of ectoblasts in his hands. "Sam, back me up!"

Sam quickly jumped backwards, reaching towards her wrist and activating her Fenton Wrist Ray, only for it to be blown off by a pink blast from the threat floating above. "Danny! I'm unarmed! You need to handle him yourself!" Sam quickly sprinted away,"Good luck!"

"Wait, _WHAT!?"_ Danny cried out in terror, turning in her direction. In his panic, he momentarily forgot about Vlad, who shifted out of visibility. "Sam, aren't you coming back!? Hey!"

Just before Danny could take off after her, he was knocked to the ground by a fuschia ectoblast to the back.

"OW! Jeez, talk about rude." He complained as he stood up, rubbing the slightly burned area gently.

He looked up towards his nemesis, expecting to see annoyance, but instead saw his face as a mask that reminded Danny forcefully of the murderers from horror films. "V-Vlad?" he shakily asked, "What _happened_ to you?"

"It's Plasmius now!" he hissed, throwing another ectoblast. It hit Danny square in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Vlad took the opportunity to tackle Danny to the ground, grinning all the while; the look on his face was inhuman. It didn't just scare Danny, it _terrified_ him. "W-wait Vlad! No! I-I can help you! Please, I can fix this- you, please!" His words jumbled somewhat unintelligibly as he was scratched by the ghost's razor sharp claws.

Danny let out a scream of pain, "NO!" the burns left by his searing claws were unbearable, "Vlad! Stop please! I can help! We-my family! We can fix you!"

Vlad chuckled darkly, "You cannot fix what was always broken." he whispered the words into Danny's ear with an odd calmness that shook the young hero to his core. He charged up a blast, holding it above Danny's face. "Finally, it's over. Stay still and this won't hurt too much."

Danny closed his eyes and turned his head away, bracing for the impact and searing pain of heated ectoplasm. Instead, an oddly familiar cold washed over him.

* * *

"Daniel."

"Clockwork? What am I doing here? Did… did Dan escape or something?"

"Not at all. I merely came to discuss a potential job for you."

"Let me guess: this'll be a lot more complex and involved than it seems, and will probably also have some huge affect on my future."

"Actually, if you accept, this task will change not only your own life, but should also improve many others, provided you succeed."

"I… My family and friends will be alright if I help, right?"

"Yes."

"What do I need to do?"

* * *

 **Word Count: 1021**

 **The next chapter is already typed up, we just need to do a little editing. It'll be up soon, probably!**

 **This is SA and AA13, wishing you a nice day/evening. Thanks for reading!**


	2. 1-1 Discovery and Innocence

**Here you go - a swift Chapter 1, as promised! This is where you actually find out what the heck is going to be happening in this story, somewhat.**

 **WARNING: A horrible guy harms a child.**

* * *

"This is a horrible idea," Danny grumbled as he floated along beside his ghostly guardian, arms crossed defiantly, "Do you really think _I'm_ the best person for this job?"

"Yes." Clockwork's answer was simple, honest, and contrary to everything Danny believed to be logical.

The half-ghost was distinctly skeptical. "But Clockwork! You know I'm-"

"Yes, I do know. After all-"

"You know everything. Right, Master of Time," Danny sighed, "But if this is really as important as you say, how can you trust me with this? I-I'm _fourteen,_ and I doubt I'll be able to just forget everything that's happened in these last few months and take care of the kid!"

Clockwork abruptly stopped and met Danny's green eyes. The boy flinched slightly under the piercing gaze, falling silent. "Daniel, when I tell you that you are the best person for the job, I mean it. Your current condition and opinion will not be an issue for long. If, by some dark miracle, it does become a problem, you won't be able to make his life much worse than it already was in your home timeline. He needs a companion and protector, and you, with the medallion, are the only one suited to fill that role! Will you abandon a mere _child_ to suffer simply because you do not like the type of person he might become!?"

Danny looked down at the medallion in shame. Clockwork was right as always; he was supposed to _protect_ people. He couldn't just leave a kid to a horrible future, that would go against everything he stood for as a hero. So even if he hated the guy…

"Fine. I'll do it," Danny relented, frowning as a blue time portal formed beside the time ghost, "That doesn't mean I have to like it, though."

As Danny floated hesitantly through the portal, he heard a low chuckle. "Even so, just because you don't need to do something doesn't mean you won't."

* * *

Little Vladimir Jones liked to imagine things.

He imagined little animals that could leap into the air all the way to the ceiling and stay there. He imagined his mommy taking him to the outside and telling him about the things that were out there. He imagined the cops his daddy told him about taking him away if he was a bad kid.

He had never imagined this before, though.

There was a person in his room, standing on the air in the middle of the bedroom. The person was smaller than Vladimir's mommy and daddy but bigger than him, and looked very different from what Vladimir knew to be normal. Its hair was white, its eyes were bright green, and it was glowing like the light bulb from the lamp, but white instead of the yellowish color. It was wearing some sort of black and white clothes that Vladimir had never seen anything like before, along with some sort of shiny round thing around it's neck.

"Hello," Vladimir said quietly, before a horrible thought occurred to him, "Are you the cops?"

The person raised an eyebrow at him. "No..? I'm not a policeman." Its voice carried a weird echo that Vladimir couldn't properly explain to himself.

"What's a policeman?" the boy asked with a tilt of his head.

"Um…" Answered the person, "Policeman and cop are two words for the same thing. I'm not one."

Vladimir smiled brightly at that, and stood from his spot on his bed to offer a hand to the person. Mommy had told him that was a thing he should to to be a good boy. "Hello! My name is Vladimir Jones. That's my name because it's what my mommy and daddy call me. Do you have a name? You look like a boy, like me and Daddy. Are you a boy?"

"Y-yeah, My name is Danny, and yes, I am a boy. Before you ask, Danny is a nickname, which means it's short for my real name but I like it better than my full name." The person - Danny - gave Vladimir's hand a disapproving look before he shook it.

"A nickname?"

"Yeah."

"Do I have a nickname?"

"You can if you want to. A nickname for Vladimir would be Vlad… or Vladdy, or V-man, or something like that. Unless you think of something else, but I might ignore you."

"Okay. It's nice to meet you, Danny."

"Allllllrighty then."

The two fell into silence, one that Vladimir found rather comfortable. He wasn't sure how Danny felt about it, but neither of them made any effort to break the stretch of silence for a while.

...Until another thought occurred to Vladimir.

"Hey," he started, brow furrowed slightly with curiosity, "You don't live here, I think. Doesn't that mean you come from the _outside?"_

Danny sighed and gave him a look the kid couldn't read, sinking from his spot in the air to sit on the carpeted floor. "Yes, I lived in a place outside of your house. Isn't that obvious?"

"Probably," Vladimir relented. Then he walked away from the glowing boy and approached his window, looking up at the blinds that covered the visual portal to the mysterious outside. "Can you show me?"

"What?"

"Can you show me the outside? I can't reach the blinds on my own so I've never seen it." Vladimir explained his request, still not looking back at Danny. Because of this, he flinched slightly in surprise when the voice came from almost directly behind him.

"You mean to tell me that you've _never_ seen anything outside of this house? I don't believe that for a second." Danny said with a strange noise, like Daddy sometimes made when he said Vladimir was being stupid.

Vladimir shrugged in response, "I don't remember ever seeing the outside, at least."

Danny sighed and reached over to the window, begrudgingly pulling the blinds aside to reveal a pale gray, far away ceiling over a patch of something brownish-green and a large, straight stretch of dark gray with faint white lines on it. Vladimir struggled on his tiptoes to see it all, but only caught quick glimpses when he jumped high enough to clear the high windowsill. The boy heard another sigh before Danny lifted him by the back of his shirt and placed him on… something?

The something was shaped like a rectangle and was the same color green as Danny's eyes, but see-through. It hadn't been there before, but when Vladimir sat on it he could easily observe the outside. Taking it all in for another quiet moment, he turned back to Danny. "What's this?"

"Mmmmmmmagic." Danny said, waving his hands in a dramatic gesture that was sharply offset by the bored look on his face.

Vladimir latched onto the strange new word, "What does Magic mean?"

"Oh!" Danny perked up a bit, an amused light in his glowing eyes. "This is a fun thing to explain! Magic is when someone or something uses energy to do things that shouldn't be possible. The energy I used is called ecto-energy. I have it inside me all the time, so I can use it to do things, like make that platform."

"Can I magic?"

"Not yet, but maybe someday. Hey, why don't you look out the window for a while now? I can't keep this platform here forever. Er, probably." Danny answered, then reminded Vladimir of what was important.

The child nodded, turning back to the window and leaning forward until his forehead rested against the cool glass. It felt funny, and he smiled. Then he began looking at the details of the outside that he had never seen before.

The brownish-green stuff was made of a bunch of very small parts, kind of like the pieces of the carpet but probably less fuzzy. Further away, the gray, white-lined thing looked pretty flat, like the walls or the floor downstairs. The lighter gray ceiling actually looked like lots of different shades, and actually seemed like it might be soft like his mommy's favorite blanket. Under the ceiling and on the other side of the flat thing were a couple of big structures, mostly white but some in other colors. If he had to take a guess, Vladimir would say that they were houses for other people.

To be honest, Vladimir was a little bit disappointed. He was expecting it to be a bit more… he didn't know what, but more than this. Through the tiny spaces between the blinds, he had sometimes seen soft blues. Many mornings, he had heard a pleasant but repetitive noise that vaguely reminded him of his mom's whistling while she made food. Where was all of that now? Was it just him imagining again?

"Hey, Vlad? Y'alright there?" the new person's voice surprised him, making the boy squeak and flich. Danny chuckled at the sight, then repeated his question, "Seriously, you've been staring out there for a while, and you don't seem too happy about it. Are you okay?"

Vladimir - considering the 'nickname' briefly - nodded. "Yes. Can I ask questions?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. You have before."

"Okay. What's that?"

For a while after that, Vladimir listened attentively as Danny explained the things that could be seen through the window. He was astonished to learn that the faraway ceiling was called the Sky, and it wasn't a ceiling at all. It was just a lot of air, and it changed all the time. Today it was filled with clouds, which were made of lots and lots of tiny drops of water, and that was why it was gray.

Vlad decided he liked the Sky. It was much cooler that the 'grass' and the 'road'.

That is, he liked it until Danny told him that clouds could make things fall from the sky, like water or even ice. He glanced at the Sky warily when Danny told him about something called a Thunder-Storm, when clouds made water fall while also shooting electricity and making loud noises.

"Hey, Danny? The outside sounds scary. I think I wanna stay in here." Vladimir informed the new person, who he was quickly becoming fond of. Danny was patient with his questions and showed him the window.

Danny blinked and made a face, "Wait, that's not right! There's lots of good out there in the world, Vlad. Like… There're things called flowers. They're plants, like the grass, but they come in any color you can think of, and most of them smell fantastic. And sometimes they attract butterflies, which are a kind of insect with beautifully patterned wings."

"Insect? Wings?" Vlad turned away from the window to look at Danny.

"Yeah. An insect is a type of living thing, and they're usually very small. There are more kinds of insects than you could ever count."

"So… more than thirty? Or more than a hundred? I can go to a hundred by tens."

"More than a hundred hundreds."

"Whoa…"

"And a lot of them have wings. Those are things that let them fly. I can do it without wings because I have ecto-energy, but many living things can fly with wings." Danny smiled as he went a bit higher towards the ceiling, his feet far above the ground.

Vladimir's eyes widened in excitement. "So… there really are animals that can jump into the air and stay there? That's fly, and they do it with wings?"

Danny smirked at the wording, though Vladimir didn't see what was so funny, "Yes, _flying_ is possible for insects and birds because they have wings."

"And you are flying because you can magic!" Vlad crowed triumphantly, "And that's why you glow, and- and that's why you aren't me imagining!"

"Pretty much..." Danny mused out loud, his arms crossed as he seemed to remember something. He studied Vladimir suspiciously, the little boy smiling back.

The moment was broken by the slam of a door downstairs. Vladimir flinched at the noise, hurriedly pulling the blinds back into place and lowering himself from the green platform. He felt the curious green gaze of his new friend following him, but didn't pause. Without an ounce of hesitation, the child hopped up onto his bed and rolled over, pretending to be asleep.

A moment later, someone stomped up the stairs noisily and threw the door open. A tall, brown-haired man stormed over to the bed, roughly wrenching the boy's shoulder until he tumbled to the carpet, his thin arms covering his face.

Vladimir curled into as small a ball as he physically could, expecting something to hit him. Instead, the man stood over him menacingly.

"Did you have the window open? I thought I saw you from outside." The man growled, hands in fists at his sides.

"N-no, I can't r-reach it."

"Vladimir Jones, you tell me the truth!"

"I am!" Vladimir cried, jumping to his feet and running to the window. He clutched at the windowsill, demonstrating that he couldn't reach the pull for the blinds. "See? I can't do-"

The boy was interrupted by a slap across the cheek. He yelped in pain as he was knocked to the ground, clutching his quickly reddening face.

The man scowled down at the whimpering boy. "Don't you _dare_ raise your voice to me again," He barked before he swept out of the room, slamming the bedroom door shut behind him.

In the seemingly empty room, a quiet voice responded, "Yes, daddy."

"...What the _hell!?"_

* * *

 **Word Count: 2234**

 **Yeah, that's the same Vlad you know and potentially don't hate. Things are... complicated.**

 **Don't be shy, go ahead and ask questions if you've got 'em. You can also feel free to tell us what you think will happen next, or anything like that! We eagerly await your digital enthusiasm, or basically any response. That'd be cool, thanks.**

 **This is SA and AA13 wishing you a good day/week/life. Thanks for reading!**


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